


What You Know You Don't Know

by EveryoneHasAmnesia



Category: The Arcana (Visual Novel)
Genre: Other, promp: asra x mc -- cuddling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-15
Updated: 2018-12-15
Packaged: 2019-09-19 18:22:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 879
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17006787
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EveryoneHasAmnesia/pseuds/EveryoneHasAmnesia
Summary: There are things you know you don't know. The things you didn't know that you didn't know are what make things difficult.





	What You Know You Don't Know

There are three kinds of knowledge. First, the things that you know. The shop. How to barter for a better price on bolts of fabric. Nine of the ten types of smiles that Asra gives you, like gifts pressed into your hands. 

Second, there are things that you know you don’t know. “What lies outside of Vesuvia?” you ask, and then gasp, sinking to your knees, as pain locks its jaws around the base of your skull like a vice grip. When you can stand again, days later, you know that you do not know. You don’t try to ask Asra where he’s been again, but you are aware of this gap in knowledge. 

Lastly, there are things that you don’t know that you don’t know.

“How many people live here?” you ask. Your friend lives above the brewery. It’s a business below and a home above, like the shop. There are two beds squeezed into one room. 

“The two of us,” she says, meaning her and her brother. Her brows are pulled together lightly; she seems to be considering you, her fingers drumming a rhythm against her mug. 

“Then? The extra bed?” You are being strange; you often are. This is one of the things you know. The first kind of knowledge, like how to grind coriander into a powder fine enough for potions. Like how you whisper the instruction to yourself as you walk from the shop to the baker’s stand in the market and back again. 

“Is--is there only one bed at home?” she asks you. You cannot think of what you would need two for. You do not answer.

Instead, you sample her latest brew. It’s an effervescent tea that’s supposed to be healthy for the stomach. It tastes sour and overly herby. You compliment her and excuse yourself from her house and the conspicuous distance between those two, separate beds. 

\- - 

You lie awake that night. All day you have wanted to ask, and all day you have weighed the chance that you will not hear the answer through the pounding of blood in your ears. Is it worth possible pain? As you try to sleep, you count the things you know. You know how to shuffle cards smoothly, without bending them. You know how to count change quickly and without being swindled. You know, now, what swindling is. Again and again, you think about two beds, and what you now suspect: that everyone else sleeps alone. 

Asra is not quite asleep yet; he came in late, and despite looking weary he poured over spell books for an hour after you went to bed. He is curled on his side, facing you, the way he prefers to sleep. His breath is warm and soft over the back of your neck, and on nights when he doesn’t come home you sleep imagining it there. You have slept by yourself. Why repeat that every night?

“Asra,” you say into the dark. 

He closes the space between you, his chest pressed to your back, his knees behind yours. “Yes?” he sounds more alert already. His arm wraps around your waist. Maybe you shouldn’t have bothered him, but it’s too late now; he’ll ask you what’s wrong until he gets an answer. 

“Why do other people have their own beds?” 

“Do you think we should have our own beds?” he asks you. 

You turn over, rolling onto your back so you can see him. His soft white hair is a mess, sleep turning loose curls into a fluffy puff. His expression is serious, and something else--sad? You have rarely seen Asra sad when he knows you can see him. Sadness, you have learned, is private. 

“I went upstairs at the brewers’, and they have two beds.” 

“Do you want to sleep by yourself?” His voice is still gentle, but he pulls himself away. The gap between you is the gap between the two beds at the brewers, as he recreates separation in miniature. 

“No,” you say. You follow him, closing the gap and reuniting your bodies. You push him onto his back and settle down with your head on his shoulder, your body curled towards his. He responds in kind--his arms wrap around you and his chin tucks into the top of your head. One hand rubs lightly up and down your back, and you think that he could be relieved--or at least, not sad anymore. 

“Why would anyone want to sleep like that?” you ask. Asra’s heart beats under your cheek, and you breathe slowly and deeply. When you do this long enough, your heart and his find a rhythm together, and you can feel it as one sensation. You know he can feel it too, and this is one of the few things you know without being taught or told. 

“I don’t know.” He shifts under you, the way he always does, finding just the right position. When he does, it’s like you’re melting together. Two caterpillars in the same cocoon couldn’t be more snug and comfortable.

When you tilt your head up to see his face, he’s smiling the tenth kind of smile, the one that’s still something you don’t know. You close your eyes on another mystery. 

You fall asleep together.


End file.
